Police determine 5-year-old girl from haredi town of Modiin Illit was in fact raped on way to pre-school, but nobody in the community is prepared to divulge victim's name or family members' identities • Police fear parents will refuse investigation.

Efrat Forsher

If walls could talk: Modiin Illit on Tuesday.

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Photo credit: Yossi Zeliger

Police have identified the preschool teacher who first treated a five-year-old Modiin Illit girl that was apparently raped a little over two weeks ago in a crime that was kept secret by the staunchly ultra-Orthodox community.

The victim and her family have yet to be identified, but police are certain that the incident in fact took place, despite insinuations by some in the community that the entire incident is fictitious.

Police investigators questioned the preschool teacher under caution, after she refused to cooperate with the investigation, and claimed she took an oath of silence to certain rabbis in the city.

"I called her parents, told them to get to the kindergarten and recommended that they take her to the hospital for medical treatment," the teacher told investigators.

Judea and Samaria Police District Commander Brigadier-General Kobi Cohen transferred the case on Tuesday to youth squad investigators in the district's central unit after deciding that the evidence pointed to an actual rape case.

Rumors of the event, which happened on Sunday two weeks ago, spread throughout the haredi settlement of Modiin Illit and eventually found its way to police. According to police information, the 5-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on her way to kindergarten. When her assailant finished with her, he released the girl and she apparently found her way to her kindergarten marred with bruises and lacerations. Police were informed that the girl required stitches for her wounds and was taken for medical treatment at a hospital in central Israel.

Police began to investigate but have hitherto failed to identify the victim or her family. Investigators claimed that many of Modiin Illit's denizens, including educators and welfare employees, are keeping their lips sealed about the ostensible rape. Rabbis in the haredi settlement, located just beyond the Green Line northeast of the city of Modiin, apparently dissuaded the town's inhabitants from leaking information to police out of concern that the crime could damage the community and family's reputation.

Investigators are hoping to persuade the teacher who first treated the girl following the assault to abandon her oath of silence and identify the victim and her family members.

Still, police fear that if they identify the family, then the victim's parents may refuse to allow an investigation of their child and the attacker will remain at large.